by Ann Major
Darkness pulsed around her as she stretched her hand toward him and kicked wildly.
Their fingertips touched briefly. Then hers fluttered helplessly away as the current dragged her under.
Deeper and deeper, she sank, into the endless liquid darkness.
*
A lunatic was pounding on her chest, crushing her ribs with his violent blows.
Stop it, she wanted to say, please, but she was too weak.
"You might as well quit trying, Raoul. She's not going to make it," a young voice croaked.
Yes, I am! Oh, yes I am—!
Eva's lips trembled with the effort to shout at the two insane idiots hovering over her, but she couldn’t seem to manage so much as a whisper. Her throat and nasal passages burned. Her stomach heaved. Her whole body ached with exhaustion and cold.
I will make it! I’m in too much pain to be dead!
She was suffocating, dying for a breath of air. Air was so close. So painfully close.
She wanted to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt as heavy as leaden weights. Despite these miseries, she sensed the warmth of the sun on her skin, the strong comfort of someone's hard arms holding her, the firm mouth forcing itself against hers, the hot breaths being rhythmically forced down her bruised windpipe again and again.
"Breathe, damn you. Breathe," her torturer ordered in such a rough, imperious growl she wanted to yell at him.
Get off me, you brute. Get off me, and maybe I could.
He was so unkind, and he was hurting her. Never before had anyone talked to her like that. But she couldn’t yell at him; she couldn’t even whisper.
He wound his long fingers in her thick hair, jerking her head up once more. She felt his hard lips on hers again. His mouth was open; so was hers. His fingers ground into her upper arms like iron bands, and she felt him push three relentless drafts of warm oxygen down her throat.
Air! At last! She was desperate for it. She gulped it in and then gagged on vile water that bubbled up from the opposite direction.
She struggled frantically to open her eyes and push him away. She was gasping, spitting water up on him, drowning all over again, and breathing in great gulps of air in spite of the pain in her throat and her waterlogged chest. Her nasal passages burned.
His arms around her, he gently helped her lean back against plump cushions.
"Pierre! More blankets. And get the brandy."
This man with the rough hands and voice didn't ask; he commanded.
"Where am I?" she managed, her voice a thin, trailing sound.
Why did she ask? She was in hell, and he was the devil.
Talking was difficult. Her throat still felt paralyzed. Every muscle was cramping from the cold.
Her rescuer, bully that he was, didn't bother to answer. "What the hell were you doing in the middle of the river in a sinking boat where you could have been killed? Don't you know that a barge could have crushed you? Barges can't stop on a dime the way I did."
“Right. Blame me, the victim!”
“In this case—damn it, yes!”
She was so tired, much too tired to fight him. "I'm not as stupid as you seem to think!"
"Really?"
"You're impossibly rude."
"So that’s all the gratitude I get for saving your life."
“Is that what you were doing?” She snapped her eyes open and her mouth, too, intending to issue a passionate rebuke. Then she remembered the looming hull and falling overboard and the man who dived in from the other boat.
Had he saved her? Was she so dazed, her mind wasn’t working properly? In a softer voice she said, “You nearly killed me first!”
“So—everything is my fault?”
As she studied him, she almost smiled at his maddeningly egotistical tone. Even with her blurred vision, he was so handsome he took her breath away.
He was her neighbor, the infamous Raoul, whom she’d had a crush on once upon a time.
Was he the most beautiful human being she'd ever seen? Like a Greek god, he had jet-black hair, chiseled features sculpted of bronze, and a body of muscle and sinew as perfect as his face. Oh, and that beautiful mouth which was so wide and sensual, and somehow so kissable.
She had a weakness for beauty. And apparently for kissable mouths. Or at least for his.
Hoping he would vanish, she rubbed her eyes, but when she opened them, he was still there. He had magnificent black eyes, and they were ablaze with fury.
"The wind died," she managed. "I couldn't sail. If you know anything about sailboats..."
His hard gaze bore into her. "You had no business being in the river in that thing in this weather."
She glanced nervously away. She was on his yacht, alone, at the mercy of a man with an abominable reputation. "I—I was trying to drift downstream. To get home."
"Where's home? Who are you?"
So he’d forgotten her.
"Eva... Martin."
He cut her off. "The youngest daughter of the, er, illustrious Senator Wade Martin's family? I believe we danced together…once."
She felt her cheeks heat and hoped he couldn’t read how pleased she was that he’d remembered her. “Yes, we did. You’re Raoul Girouard.”
She’d been spying on him at a local ball when he’d been in the garden with a woman. When he’d discovered her, he’d sent her back inside the ballroom where she’d been a wallflower until he’d singled her out for a dance later. Afterwards, he’d escorted her back to the wall and ignored her.
His burning gaze swept her sodden form, traveling down her throat, over the curves of her breasts. She sensed danger even though she was unaware that her wet, white t-shirt and shorts were almost transparent.
“How old are you?”
"Twenty!" She snapped with childish pride in having attained such a vast age.
"All of twenty?" His knowing smile was cynical. "Well, now that you’re all grown up, I'm afraid I must warn you that your family doesn't like me much."
"I'm beginning to see why."
"Really?"
"You’re rude. And besides that…my grandmother's told me all about you."
A shadow passed across his handsome face, but he said smoothly, "Did she catalogue my sins? Or tell you I eat little girls like you for breakfast?" His voice was soft and low, but it vibrated through every feminine cell in her body.
She regarded him with dark suspicion, her brow so puckered with worry that some of his anger seemed to leave him. The kissable mouth actually smiled.
"I’m especially dangerous at night because I can’t resist eating them for midnight snacks." He laughed softly and, like his voice, his laughter was a dangerously pleasant sound.
Her lips quivered as she tried to suppress a smile. If he was a scoundrel, at least he didn't pretend he wasn't.
"But you're perfectly safe. I had a late lunch, and it's still the middle of the afternoon."
“Who was the lucky girl you had for lunch?”
“Don’t tease,” he warned. When his breath stirred the damp hair near her ear, her pulse accelerated in alarm. “It wouldn’t be wise to turn me on.”
Maybe he was joking, but some part of her knew that she wasn’t entirely safe.
Fortunately Pierre returned with the blankets and brandy. Raoul took the blankets and fiercely pressed them around her, molding them to the shapely contours of her body as if in an attempt to hide them. When he was done, Raoul commanded Pierre to steer the yacht toward Martin House. Pierre vanished again, and Eva was left alone with Raoul.
Raoul held the glass of brandy to her lips. "Here, this will make you feel better."
"I don’t drink brandy."
"You will today."
When she scowled defiantly, he scowled back with equal ferocity. She took a sip, but the one swallow had her bolting upward. She grabbed at her throat. Not that she could stop the stuff from burning all the way down her esophagus. Then she was coughing.
He slipped an arm beneath her head and patted h
er back gently and set the glass down.
"Are you trying to kill me? D-did anyone ever tell you that you're incredibly bossy?" she sputtered.
He merely smiled and patted her back until she stopped coughing. "I like to get my way."
When she saw her boat drifting upside down toward the shallows, a tremor went through her as she realized how close she'd come to death. His arms were still around her, and when he would have pulled away, she clung, feeling ridiculous for needing to be held.
“Thank you for coming back for me.” Just the thought of that dark water sucking her under made her tremble all over again.
“It was the least I could do.” He let her go.
Embarrassed, she pushed her wet hair from her eyes. "I must look a mess."
Raoul’s glinting eyes swept her from head to toe. "But a pretty mess." His voice was huskily pitched. "I see why they keep you under lock and key."
His eyes and voice warmed her.
“You’re the daughter with the bad-boyfriend problem.”
When she frowned, he shrugged and gave her a lazy smile. “Who knows…maybe you’ll have a weakness for me.”
“I know you probably say things like that to every woman, but don’t flirt—if you don’t mean it."
A shadow came across his face, and his eyes grew grave. He touched her chin, lifted it. “All right.”
She could see some sadness in his eyes—and the secret pain.
"You’ve had a helluva scare," he murmured. “But it’s over now.”
"The water, the darkness of it...I never knew before how much I wanted to live."
"Thank God I stopped the boat before I hit you," he whispered.
To her surprise he took her slender hands in his and buried his face in them. She felt the warmth of his bronzed skin, the rough texture of his close-shaven cheek. She grew aware of his heavily muscled body thrillingly close to hers. He was trembling, and she realized that this strong, hard man had been just as frightened as she.
"I was driving like I've lived—too damned fast. You were right. What nearly happened was as much my fault as yours." He paused. "Your grandmother's right about me, you know. I'm the kind of man a girl, especially a girl with your weakness, should avoid."
"I don't always do what Grand-mere says."
He studied the tilted stubborn chin, the flame color of her hair. "Maybe you should."
"She told me to stay out of the river."
"You definitely should have listened."
"Then I would never have gotten to know you better." Eva's breath caught in her throat. She had never been so bold. "I—I shouldn't have said that."
"I'm sure you’re right."
"I never chase men."
"Chasing the opposite sex can be a delightful pastime."
"You are terrible."
"I believe in enjoying life."
"And conceited."
"Impossibly."
"You have a bad temper."
"Horrendous." He smiled sheepishly.
"And a scandalous reputation."
"Even worse than my temper."
"At least you're honest about it."
"Only when I believe it suits me to be."
Again she sensed a darkness in him. “I don’t think you’re nearly as scandalous as your reputation.” Eva touched his damp hair, ruffled her fingers through it and then drew her hand back in shock.
"Little girls shouldn't play with fire unless they want to get burned," he warned gently.
"This morning I thought I was in love with someone else.”
“And now you’re flirting with me.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes you are, and I’ll prove it.”
Suddenly she felt his hands on her shoulders. As his head lowered toward hers, she closed her eyes, her stomach turning topsy-turvy with excitement. She should resist, push him away, but she was too fatally attracted.
"You're sweet," he whispered. "Too sweet for a bad character like me." Slowly he drew her closer and kissed her softly on the mouth. At the touch of his lips, her own quivered as delicious little shivers traced over her body. Never had Armand, never had anyone, aroused her emotions with a single kiss as he did.
When he released her almost immediately, she sighed in disappointment.
"I'm too old and experienced for you," he murmured hoarsely.
"How old?"
"Thirty-five. An antique."
"Luckily I come from a long line of antique dealers."
When he laughed, and she buried her face in the hollow of his neck, she heard the harsh rasp of his indrawn breath.
"Very lucky," he groaned, pulling away, even as his dark eyes devoured her.
Something elemental hovered in the air, charging them both with tension.
"Your family doesn't like me." His swarthy face was a hard mahogany mask.
"Maybe if you went into a respectable career—like law or medicine..."
"So you think law is respectable?" He chuckled. "Chere, you are very young."
"At least my family already knows all about you and won't have to hire a private investigator."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Do you always live so dangerously?" he murmured. His lean muscled frame stretched out beside her with graceful ease. The sun broke through the fog. Its flooding brilliance caught the side of his face and made the gray at his temple gleam against his black hair.
"I enjoy meeting interesting people."
Carelessly he took her hand in his. Just his nearness and his most casual touch caused an emotional upheaval inside her.
He was forbidden. A known scoundrel. He was probably a thousand times worse than her other bad boyfriends.
She should get up and run.
But as his hand slid caressingly along the length of her arm, she smiled and stayed where she was.
He made her feel alive. She sensed a beauty in him that was more than physical. How could anything so beautiful be bad?
And, if he really was a scoundrel, maybe she could redeem him.
Chapter One
Rotterdam, Netherlands
The man who had called himself Nicholas Jones for the past eight years hung up the phone, but he could not forget the call.
So—Otto had found him out, in the nick of time to stave off the ruin of his vast von Schonburg empire. Otto would stop at nothing now that he had learned his enemy's true identity.
The man at the desk had learned that bitter truth the hard way. Beneath his silk dress shirt, there were tangled coils of flesh that ran the length of his back, scars from his stay in a terrorist prison camp. Because of a bullet wound to his left thigh, he would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. But the worst scars were carved like fissures into his soul. Betrayal, prison, the desert—Africa. All these tortures he had endured because of one man, Prince Otto von Schonburg.
Now Otto was playing a new, deadly game—with the woman Nicholas had once loved.
Nicholas had always known he would have to deal with her someday.
But not like this.
Evangeline, beautiful, sweetly naïve Eva, was in dreadful danger.
Because of him. Because of that single governing emotion that had driven him since Africa—his fierce desire for revenge against von Schonburg for destroying him and blackening his name; revenge, too, for those men who'd fought under him and died.
Nicholas didn't want his carefully laid plans to get even with von Schonburg blown away because of Eva. He didn't want to be involved with her again.
He curled his fist into an iron-tight knot of flesh and bone.
But he was.
Just as he knew all of Otto's weaknesses, Otto knew his.
And Evangeline Martin had been one of them from the first moment he'd pulled her from the Mississippi River and breathed life back into her.
Not that the man who called himself Nicholas loved her. Not anymore. She belonged to another time, another world. He had been another man, and she had
been part of his foolish dream. The emotion that now filled his heart ran deep, but it was of a darker strain.
He lit a cigarette and carefully shook out the match. It was Friday before a beautiful European summer weekend. Everyone else had gone home. Even Zak. The trading room on the fifth floor of Z.A.K. World Oil was ominously quiet. The telephones no longer buzzed; the remote-control video screens were blank. During the day the room was a war zone as his agents scrambled for cargoes and markets. Z.A.K. was a key trader in the international spot-oil market.
Nicholas was seated alone in the dark, staring unseeingly out the windows at the quiet Rotterdam neighborhood of centuries-old brick town houses beneath his glass office building. Every muscle in Nicholas's lean six-foot frame ached with exhaustion. He was forty-five. His once-black hair was winged with silver. Deep worry lines grooved his handsome dark face. His expression was harsh and set. His black eyes that had once flashed with youthful dreams were world-weary and cynical, as though cruel experiences in his life had obliterated all softness in him.
He should have known cornering von Schonburg had been too easy.
"Raoul," Otto had whispered in his guttural German accent into the telephone. That dreadful voice. Nicholas had known it instantly. "So you really are alive."
"No thanks to you."
"You're the owner of Z.A.K., the genius pulling the strings of his puppets from backstage. You've done well, my friend." The German voice lowered to a gravelly purr. "Thanks to me. Or rather at my expense. But no more. And to think—once you worked for me instead of against me."
"No more. I put the noose around your neck. I have only to pull it tight to strangle you."
"You still don't get it. I have Evangeline."
Evangeline. He hadn't seen her for eight years, yet at the mere sound of her name Nicholas had gripped the armrests of his chair with clenched fingers. A silence had filled the office—the still, alert silence of terror.
"The noose is around your neck, my friend."
"Otto, you listen to me—"
"No, you listen to me, Girouard. You're good at what you do, but you lack the killer instinct. I don't. Last night I held her in my arms. We made love until dawn. The silly little fool thinks I want to marry her. She wants marriage and children. She still wants her family's approval, and who could not approve of the most eligible bachelor in Europe?"